


Vestral

by moreagaara



Series: The Emperor Revived [7]
Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ascending Ranks, Blood, Blood Magic, Blood and Gore, Confusion, Control, Control Issues, Cross-Post, Cross-Posted on deviantArt, Deviates From Canon, Drugs, Exterminatus, Fanfiction, Gen, Literature, Mental Health Issues, Mind Control, Mind Meld, Missing Primarch, Mistaken Identity, Originally Posted Elsewhere, Originally Posted on deviantART, Poison, Poisoning, Portals, Pre-Canon, References to Drugs, Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Slavery, mind magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-29 14:20:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20798012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moreagaara/pseuds/moreagaara
Summary: So!  Once upon a time, Games Workshop intended for people to make up their own Primarchs and their own Legions, as I stated once before.  As I also stated once before, I have taken up the challenge and created two Primarchs, and have altered the canon to allow for their existence.  Presented here, for your enjoyment, is Vestral!  Who wound up not actually being recruited by the Emperor on account of he managed to trigger Daenus's memories of himself being little more than a beast without realizing it.  Had Vestral somehow made it to the Heresies, however, there's a pretty high likelihood that he would have wound up a Traitor...being treated like Old Testament God for your childhood will do that.Peep Ownership:Games Workshop:  WH40k and relatedMe:  Vestral, the writing, and the Emperor's name





	Vestral

**Author's Note:**

> So! Once upon a time, Games Workshop intended for people to make up their own Primarchs and their own Legions, as I stated once before. As I also stated once before, I have taken up the challenge and created two Primarchs, and have altered the canon to allow for their existence. Presented here, for your enjoyment, is Vestral! Who wound up not actually being recruited by the Emperor on account of he managed to trigger Daenus's memories of himself being little more than a beast without realizing it. Had Vestral somehow made it to the Heresies, however, there's a pretty high likelihood that he would have wound up a Traitor...being treated like Old Testament God for your childhood will do that.
> 
> Peep Ownership:  
Games Workshop: WH40k and related  
Me: Vestral, the writing, and the Emperor's name

_How long have I been here? _It was a foolish thought; time had no meaning in this place. Even if it did, the dragonling’s surroundings changed so frequently that time itself would have changed as well. He—now a she, and a human—had to change with them, or go irrevocably mad, and then change. At least this way, she—now sexless and genderless, but at least still human for the moment—had some control over what they were. _They. That’s a good word for me._

They would have added “from now on” to the end of that thought, but “now” was as fluid a concept as the past or future; more than once, they had come into contact with themselves, and neither of the two instances had been certain which of them came first. In the end, they had decided to treat such occurrences as simply meeting a friend—not themselves, but a friend whom they had not seen for a while—and to speak politely, but give no information about themselves or what they were doing. After the two versions of the human-who-had-become-a-dragon-and-was-becoming-a-half-breed again had exchanged brief pleasantries, they parted and moved on.

So far, the only defense they had ever found was to simply continue moving. Iron and salt should have protected them, but concepts like “iron” and “salt” were just as fluid as the substance they held—if, indeed, they held anything at all. Moreover, whatever motion they made through the area could have been walking, but it could just as easily be flying, or swimming, or bouncing, or any other motion available to a mortal creature. Yet, so long as they kept moving, they were slightly safer than they were if they didn’t. After all, if they did sit down and refuse to move, the world would simply have moved them anyway, and if that happened, they would be dumped somewhere terrifying.

They had learned that much the hard way.

_A doorway? _They hesitated, chose to circle the shining beacon while they pondered their choice. On the one hand, a door could be a way out. On the other hand…there was no escaping this nightmare. It was definitely a path to somewhere else—all doors in this place were—but where it led was debatable. Deeper into the labyrinth, somewhere worse, somewhere better? What even was “worse” and “better”? The door began to fade; they took their chance and slipped through just before it closed.

~~*~~

Gravity. Light. Sound. Dirt encrusting a body—a _stable _body, and the sort of dirt didn’t change. They didn’t trust anything for a second. This was another trick, another torment. They pushed themselves up, regarded their surroundings with a suspicious eye. Mountains fading into a grassy plain and sunrise gilding the peaks; a single massive city sprawling on either side of a river, bordered severely by a gloomy forest. Nothing wavered as they watched; nothing shimmered when they attempted to force the changes to begin.

Yet they could _feel _the mutable power of their kidnapper, so they knew that this had to be another fiction. They had not survived for—however long—without being able to roll with the change, so they wandered down the side of the mountain. _I wonder what I look like… _they wondered idly; it was a foolish thought. Even if they learned, it would change again a heartbeat later. They kept walking, barely pausing to look around, and eventually came across three beings—not themselves again, thankfully, they could feel the difference between themselves and each of the three beings—and all of them paused.

The three beings muttered among themselves. “That’s a mutant,” one of the other beings hissed. A second drew a weapon; they responded immediately, simply willing a shield, and then a slender silver blade into existence. The second paused—they paused as well, curious as to why both shield and blade were remaining stable—and lowered its weapon by a fraction. “It’s a psyker,” the second stated. “The city said we were to bring any psykers back for testing,” it continued, looking to the third of the beings along with the first. The third seemed…older, wiser than the other two. That made it more dangerous; they raised their shield towards them and angled their blade so that they could behead all three in a single swing, if it became necessary.

The third stepped forward cautiously, ahead of both the others; they took a single step back and pressed the blade against its chest in warning. The third took no further steps, and raised its hands to show them the nothingness it held. “We won’t hurt you, good sir,” it said; their suspicions were instantly raised, but rather than show anything, they smiled brightly and even lowered their shield a fraction. The third smiled back and continued. “If you’ll tell us your name, we’ll take you back to our house and give you some food. That sound good?”

It didn’t. At all. A name was dangerous; it gave access to the soul, and therefore the _being_, and food could easily be poisoned or worse. But they pretended to be happy, even excited by the offer; they played into their own loneliness to provide a foundation for their lie. “Shadow is fine,” they said, and were surprised by their own voice. It had been a long time since they had spoken, and the last time they had, their voice had been much deeper; now it was light, high, almost childlike. The shield and blade really should have vanished by now; they sent them away rather than wait for them to be pulled away by the changes.

“Shadow, huh?” the third one thought a little; it knew they were lying, and they knew it knew. But they smiled wider and nodded once; Shadow was the best name they were going to give, and eventually the third one shrugged. “All right, Shadow. Food is this way,” it said, gesturing along the path they had meant to wander off; paths were dangerous if the ending wasn’t known, but they needed the three beings to think they had been fooled. Two of the three went ahead, probably to prepare both poison and food; the third, meanwhile, fiddled with something on its belt, and they pretended not to notice, but smiled darkly to know they had been right.

At last they and the third being reached a small wooden cottage; there was a four-legged, furry creature with an injured leg that nevertheless happily yelled at them, as though announcing that it had found them; the third being petted the creature and gave it some sort of green treat that quieted it, and the creature insisted on following them closely and laying on their feet when they finally sat down. They sniffed the air; the food _did _smell good and wholesome, but there was a strange undercurrent to the smell that took them a while to place.

Drugs, but not poisons. The third had finished fiddling with the device on its belt; an answer came back quickly, and they were given food. Instead of eating, they waited, and so did the three beings. The first of them spoke. “What’s wrong?”

“You could have poisoned this,” they said simply, smiling slightly, and read alarm in their beings though their bodies showed nothing.

“I didn’t poison your food,” the first said. They read truth in their being; the second had done the poisoning. They shifted their gaze to the second. “It isn’t poisoned,” the second said. Truth; the food was only drugged to render senseless, not dead.

“Then eat with me,” they replied. There were other seats at the table; both first and second hesitated, but took a seat and utensils with which to take small bites. Their gaze shifted to the third, who had yet to eat anything; the third got up to get his own utensils and took much bigger bites. Only then did they pick delicately at the proffered food; thankfully, the drugs weren’t strong enough to really affect them, but their companions were greatly affected.

The third succumbed first, but it had taken the largest bites; by then, the first and second were too woozy to do anything to help. Then the second took too large of a bite and fell over; the first stood, meaning to help, but standing made it fall over. The furry creature was upset, went to each of the three beings in turn to lick each face in an attempt to wake each up, and made high-pitched noises the whole time. They were merely pleased to have exposed the plot and kept picking at the food. Drugs or no, the food did taste as good as it had smelled.

Soon enough, other beings arrived—once again, they were not meeting themselves and knew by the feel of the beings’ souls—and each of the beings stopped just inside the cottage. There was a strange feeling in the souls, one that they didn’t recognize, so they simply tilted their head as though equally upset by the scene. “They said it wasn’t poisoned,” they informed these new beings, allowing a quavering note into their voice and fear and upset into their eyes. An easy enough lie, as they only had to mimic the furry creature.

When the attack came, it was directly on their mind; they responded quickly, but whoever was with them was skilled at shutting their defenses down before they could think to use them. _I am sorry, friend, but they will hurt me if I don’t do this, _the other voice said. Someone else’s voice inside their head was a sign of possession; they began screaming, turned their power towards resisting any form of puppeteering—

Someone else closed them down.

~~*~~

_Vestral wasn’t sure what was going on. He could neither move nor think properly; someone else was suppressing his mind. Someone else was _in _his mind, and could see the truth of his being—that he was a he, not a they, and that he had been stuck somewhere without stable form. Whoever the someone was couldn’t fully interpret what Vestral remembered of the place, and so imposed structure upon it: a maze of crystal and mirrors with paths that constantly shifted. To look into the crystals and mirrors was to see the self reflected—and refracted into a thousand teeming, seething shapes._

_The other within Vestral’s mind filled with sympathy for him, the more they tried to understand his past, and the more Vestral felt himself pulling them in. He began to see their story in return: their name was Kiva, their assigned name Kay. She was a Suppressor, her task to prevent untrained, uncorralled, unbound psykers—like Vestral—from wreaking havoc in the city…and right now, she was keeping him from waking up during his surgery._

_For a moment, Vestral shared Kay’s mind. For a moment, he saw himself as she did: humanoid, but covered in thick, reptilian scales with hair sprouting between the cracks. They meant to remove the scales and make him fully human, like them, because they needed more psykers to shield their city, fight their wars, combat intrusion, and protect them from That Which Lay Beyond. And then Kay felt him._

__They’ll make you if you don’t agree, _she told him as he started to wiggle free of her power; he was too powerful for her to force down for more than a minute at a time. _Please stay down, please. They’ll hurt me if you don’t.__

_Vestral considered. Speaking this way, sharing meaning with each other without words getting in the way and obscuring things, sharing every thought and experience along with the meaning, so that all was laid bare and nothing could be a lie…this he could trust. Yet Vestral felt like he was standing on a knife’s edge; one step more, and he would do something unforgivable. What it was, he couldn’t tell, but if he hesitated much longer—_

_Vestral shrieked and wrenched himself away from Kay; in the second before they fully separated, he felt her stagger, and then collapse._

~~*~~

Vestral awoke, and this time it was to a clean white room. He was dressed—no. _They _were dressed entirely in black. Outside of his own mind, where others could reach him without being able to touch his soul (and he theirs), he was _they_. They could feel the small dents all over their body where scales had been, and where human flesh was only just starting to regrow. They ran their hands over their arms, wanting but not daring to scratch the healing itch.

The walls reacted to his thoughts, and began to display a moving scene of freshly emerged butterflies. Vestral surged up, fists clenched, meaning to break the walls—the scene stopped and the walls turned white again. _Real or not real? _The mists of change started to swirl around their mind again, and were reflected on the walls. They—he—panicked. He hurled himself towards the nearest of the walls, and punched with all the strength he could muster. The wall-screen shattered, only able to display fractured static. He moved on to the next, and the next—his fingers brushed against something smooth and alien on his skull. He screamed and tried to rip it off, but it was firmly attached to the bone of his skull.

He bit his fingers, drew blood, made himself claws, and dug the claws under the lip of the smoothness; its pins ground against his skull. Only some popped free; the rest pulled skull, and even bits of brain out with them. The walls were blankly white again, but he needed to stop them before the mist took over again, so he resumed punching, mixed in clawing and kicking, even tearing the panels off the walls when the mood struck him.

The Suppressor from his surgery returned; he reached out along the connection she forged with barely a thought to hold her in place. They would hurt her if he didn’t bow, he remembered her telling him that—not if he killed them first—why was she hugging him? She was still in his head, letting him see everything that she was. _Calm down. Calm down, _she was saying, but she put no power behind the thought. She wouldn’t make him calm, only ask him.

Fear still screamed at him, demanding that he destroy the changing walls and the creatures that had made them. _It’s not like your Before, _she told him, desperate, begging for him to listen. He did, but only because of her desperation and need to explain. _They want you to be a Shield, _she was telling him, guiding him gently to his knees; he resisted at first, but she was carefully and silently insistent, and she hadn’t hurt him…yet.

He knelt, looking into her eyes and her thoughts beyond them. A Shield’s duty was to protect the city that enslaved them—Kay tried to deny it, but the feeling was clear to them both—and only the most powerful psykers could do it. Even they tended to burn out quickly; Vestral had been tested while unconscious and had been determined to be powerful enough for the task. It was standard procedure for Shields to have their own room, a quiet place where they could meditate and focus on their work, where the walls changed to anything they wanted to see—be it reality or fictional conjuring—and the implant Vestral had torn out connected the Shield both to the walls around them and to the city itself.

It was also standard procedure to put the implant in and allow the Shield to wake up in their working room; normally the Shield would see the walls change, and would figure out that they could control the walls with their thoughts. It had turned to butterflies because Vestral had been thinking about his itching skin and of insects; butterflies had been the closest the system could manage, as many within the city found the scene calming and beautiful. Others feared it, and the system had returned to neutral, marked him as one such when he had grown suddenly afraid. When he had thought of his Before, the system had turned to a scene of swirling fog, as many within the city also found that to be calming. The screens and those who had built them didn’t know about his Before. They hadn’t meant to frighten him so.

Kay had not spoken of what she had seen, because she had not known where he would be placed, had not known he would react quite so badly, and had not wanted to violate his privacy. Vestral felt tears—mostly of his continued fear—in his eyes; he clutched Kay close. He could trust her—but only her, and no one else within the city or the rest of the world. He felt her trying to warn him about something, but brushed the warnings away; it was his turn to urge calm.

_You’re hurt, _she told him, repeating her words out loud so the other beings with her knew what they were saying; in answer, Vestral merely healed himself. The missing pieces of brain regrew smoothly, bone reformed over the exposed area in a semi-crystalline lattice, and then skin flowed over the exposed bone like water. He did heal the scars from the implant, but he also ordered his head to remain clean-shaven.

_I am well now, _Vestral answered; it was best to be clear. To say he was well was to say that he had always been well, which would be a lie; to lie was to call up the mists again and become lost. Kay understood, but she would; she _saw _him.

There were other Shielding rooms; they weren’t as good as the one he had destroyed, but they did work. If he didn’t want an implant, they did have helmets that would also connect him to the outside world, though not as well as the implant. He would be given anything he wished so long as the shield around the city was maintained; if he wanted, she would stay with him until he had adjusted to his duties.

He appreciated the offer, and the city named him Shade.

~~*~~

Kay was mortal, and so she died; Shade soon learned they were immortal, at least in the ways that mattered. Kay grew old; Shade did not. Kay had limits on her strength; Shade did not. Kay could be hurt, poisoned by assassins sent by other cities; Shade could not. Shade was more than strong enough to keep the link between themselves and Kay open no matter where she was within the city, and so they knew the moment she finally fell to the assassins.

They weren’t sure whether to laugh or to cry, nor whether they wished company or not. They weren’t sure whether they wished to be Shade or Vestral, or if they wished to have another pet—as one of the city officials put it—or if they wished to turn on the city they were required to protect. For once, the mists of change that surged up in their mind were welcome; if they rode the waves in the mist, they did not need to justify their changing mind from moment to moment. So the shield flickered, but held. Shade called for people to attend them, but never opened the door—a psychic lock was more effective than the metallic one the city broke to try and get to them. It wasn’t quite enough.

Eventually, when Shade called, the city official assigned to them was able to open the door. On the other side, Shade’s room had changed. Out of respect and liking for Kay, Shade had kept toys and trinkets scattered around the room, a soft carpet spread over the floor, a couch with room enough for the pair of them, the lights on, and the screens projecting visible scenes. With her gone, Shade had remade the room with only their own comfort in mind. Now the lights were off, and the screens flickered with half-seen, shadowy movement; they had gathered the toys up and put them in a box near the door, had pulled up the carpet and leaned it against the wall nearby. The couch remained, but it had been turned to face the wall in a corner, and there were fresh claw marks decorating the leather. The city official paused in the entry, knowing he ought to close the door, but unwilling to deprive himself of his only light.

Eventually Shade spoke. “I wish for the box and the carpet to be removed,” they informed the official from their position in one of the darker corners of the room. They could smell the official’s fear, and smiled quietly to themselves. “There will be no need to replace either the box or its contents, and as you can see, I have taken it upon myself to do the hard work in removing the carpet,” they gestured to the now-bare floor, studded with the tacks that had held the carpet in place. The city official glanced towards the motion and froze. Shade grinned and stood, enjoying the look of fear in the official’s eyes as they kept on standing and eventually ended at twice the official’s height. “What’s wrong?” Shade asked lightly, as though not understanding the problem, and took a few steps forward so that their body was half-illuminated by the light from behind the official.

They had changed, mutated worse than they had been before their initial surgery to remove their scales and make them human. Once more they had scales, but now the scales fit together smoothly to form a coat of armor as tough as the alloys worn by the city’s greatest defenders and glimmered darkly red—lighter and thinner near the joints. Their fingers were tipped with claws that glittered steely gray in the half-light, and they had extended their jaws into a snout filled with razor-sharp teeth, and given themselves a pair of glittering black horns that curled around their ears, over the helmet that connected them to shield and city.

Shade took one more step forward, and the official unconsciously took one step back. Shade stopped, tilted their head; behind them, a scaly tail flicked as though curious. “Don’t you like my new face?” they asked. 

The city official squeaked at first, then cleared his throat. “I’ll…just go ahead and take these…” he eventually managed, leaning down to gather up the box with its collection of trinkets. His eyes never once left Shade’s. “Someone will come and…collect the carpet in a few minutes and deal with the tacks—”

“I like the tacks,” Shade informed him, mouth twisting almost petulantly. “The tacks will stay.” The official nodded understanding and bolted; Shade chuckled and closed the door behind him. They opened it only once more to allow the workmen in and remove the carpet, and afterwards only opened it to accept the food he had requested; the dishes were left in a neat stack just outside the door.

~~*~~

_Vestral—Shade—knew perfectly well that his shielding efforts allowed the armies of his city to attack the others without needing to worry about being attacked themselves. Since only he was needed to defend the city, the officials could field their entire army to attack the other cities on the planet. When retribution came, the mental fists of the other psykers picked fruitlessly at the seams of his shield; perhaps they would have found a way through eventually, had his shield not continually changed. The other armies could not wear him down through sustained barrage, even when they combined forces with multiple allies to attack as one._

_His home city, meanwhile, did everything it could to keep him happy and willing to shield them. If he wished to walk about the city, he did so; the city sent no guards with him, and all within the city simply gave him anything he asked for, from small furry animals—the only creatures he enjoyed keeping and spending time with—to freshly discovered archaeotech. He was deeply amused to see them scurrying to please him. When at last the leader of the city died, Vestral off-handedly remarked that perhaps he should be given the position._

_He laughed out loud when they gave it to him without question, and then he laughed more when, one by one, the other cities approached him with offers of alliance—in reality subservience—if only he would cease sending his home city’s armies against them. Soon enough, Vestral had the wealth of an entire continent at his disposal, and discovered that there were other continents on the planet he had come to regard as being rightfully his. The first other continent fell in a single night; Vestral arrived alone with only a handful of guardians, and simply tore the other armies apart with raw power, while ensuring his own guardians could not be touched. At sunrise, each city there bowed to his every whim._

_The remaining two continents united at the show of force, and attempted to invade his home continent, pushing for Vestral’s home city, clearly meaning to kill him or injure his pets before he could repeat his feat on their homelands. Vestral simply removed his people to the mountains and waited for them alone. When they arrived, he lowered the city’s shield so they could enter; boldly, foolishly, they did. All were lost in moments, crossing and recrossing the same paths they had been taking for hours, while Vestral picked and pressed at their minds, twisting their thoughts until they believed that they served him, that they had always served him, and always would serve him._

_Then he sent them home, with orders to conquer, and they obeyed._

_For years, the world bent itself to appease Vestral. Any passing fancy that flitted across his mind was the world’s duty to fulfill. If Vestral wished to walk upon the moon, the world would set itself to building craft to reach it; if Vestral wished to swim in the deepest trenches of the sea, the world set itself to reaching them. Viewing the sun, mining the other planets, capturing a comet, an asteroid…the entire system of star and planets was Vestral’s to command, and he needed only to lounge back in the room he had first been given in his home city—the only room he had not filled with wealth and luxury—and enjoy it all._

_And then a golden starship arrived to see him._

~~*~~

Vestral’s first action upon feeling the starship arrive was to have himself taken to the very edge of his system and feel for any foreign psykers. There were many, and one of them noticed his intrusion immediately. They were not afraid of his strength, nor of his reach, nor of the armies he commanded. They already knew everything there was to know about those things, they knew what he liked to do with his time…they even knew his _name._

_Hello Vestral, _they greeted him, snagging a stray tendril of Vestral’s thought and bringing it close to their own. Though Vestral stood within the walls of the man’s mind, he could feel that there were hidden secrets everywhere, if he could just expend the strength to reach them. And yet, he could not; the stranger held him as effortlessly as he usually held other psykers.

And for the first time in ages, Vestral was afraid. _Who are you? What do you want?_

The stranger paused, sensing his fear and its origin. _My name is Daenus. I am the Emperor of Mankind, from Terra. I just want to talk to you. May I change the scene?_

No one ever asked permission to change what Vestral saw within their minds; either they changed it without asking—and he squashed them in retribution—or he made it change to terrify them. _Perhaps… What would you change it to?_

In answer, Daenus held up his hands; an orb filled with the change floated over them, but the Emperor held it so securely that it could not escape or affect anything that he did not want it to. Within the orb, Vestral saw a garden near the peak of a mountain: it had been carefully designed and ordered, with only the hardiest plants chosen for the garden; the space between each plant was filled with pebbles that had been carefully raked in a continuous loop that even Vestral found relaxing to look at; there were paths laid out through the raked pebbles which meandered lazily through the stands of plants, occasionally ending at stone benches, which overlooked flowering bushes, or icy ponds, or—in one case—a magnificent palace that twinkled in the sunlight. Vestral placed his hands on the orb, and removed the Emperor’s protections with a single twitch of his mind. Around them, the changed scene bloomed into being, and Vestral promptly followed one of the twisting pathways to an icy pond.

Creatures swam beneath the ice, apparently unaffected by the chilly air above; Vestral tapped the ice with a scale-covered foot, and they shied away from the tapping. The Emperor carefully sat beside him; for a long while, neither of them spoke.

_This is your home, isn’t it? _Vestral finally asked.

_Yes, it is. This is the Imperial Palace on Terra. Specifically, one of the zen gardens I keep reserved for meeting important guests. At least, that’s my official reason for keeping people out of here. _Vestral looked over at him, and saw one of the secrets Daenus kept: a carefully shaped standing stone, with words Vestral couldn’t read carved upon it. The meaning of the stone went deep within Daenus: Vestral saw immense love and compassion for what appeared to be two very different people, and he saw a binding, unbroken thread of promise that continued to unspool even as they sat and spoke. He and Daenus were nowhere near the area; there was a stone path leading to the headstone, but it was so well-hidden that Vestral doubted he could find it, even if he read Daenus’s mind the whole way.

Once again, Vestral was silent for a long time. He twisted himself slightly, and found that he could not affect the scene—not without Daenus’s permission, anyway—but he could affect himself. He smoothed his scales away, so that his human self was revealed; his rich clothing melted away into the black bodysuit he had worn initially upon being discovered by the city. _What did you want to talk to me about?_

There was much to cover. Vestral was Daenus’s son, of sorts, and there was a secret that Vestral could almost catch—Daenus had decided to reunite humanity, so that it could survive a thousand different threats: brutish, green-skinned creatures called orks; lithe, graceful, almost bird-like beings called Eldar; worm-creatures that devoured the minds and bodies of those they encountered; time-warping, robed creatures that Daenus had only heard accounts of second-hand which did not yet have a name; and a purple-black force that Daenus tried to move past without comment.

Vestral would not let him. He knew that force. He had lived within its grasp for some time, and there was no meaningful way to say how much. The fear rose up within him again, and the flower Vestral was holding turned black and spiky; the Emperor did not speak, but did place an arm around his shoulders. The movement was cautious, hesitating, and Vestral could have shaken the arm off at any point. Instead, he leaned into it and allowed the Emperor to see the secret he had previously trusted only one other person with.

And Daenus saw. There was pity in his soul, but not much of it; there was sorrow, and there was horror, and there was compassion, and there was understanding. Long-dead Kay had never understood the _why _that Daenus so immediately grasped; she had known it to be there, but it had always evaded her grasp. It did feel better to be understood in this way, to have someone know and comprehend what Vestral’s Before meant and what it did to him.

_So what does reuniting the galaxy have to do with me? _he eventually asked of Daenus, after the sun in their image began to set and a gentle snow began to fall.

_Most of all, it means that the systems you control recognize my rule. But since you are a Primarch…it means that if you wish—and I will not force you— _Vestral could feel that Daenus might force others, but not him. Never him. _If you wish, you may take command of the Astartes Legion I made for you. They are, for the moment, named the Sand Drakes; most of them are latent psykers with a talent for protection and diplomacy. _Vestral and Daenus shared a smile. _If you want, you can rename them. It is well known by now that I am terrible at naming things._

_No, you aren’t. Sand Drakes is probably what I would have chosen, _Vestral corrected him. _It’s just…my people won’t understand if you don’t beat me somehow. _He could feel Daenus reading within his soul exactly how he had managed to bring his planet to heel, and nod his understanding. _So…let’s play a game. I’ll return to my home city, and you have to find me somewhere within it. When you do, we’ll have a show-fight, and I’ll lose on purpose._

Daenus agreed that it was a good plan. He helped Vestral to find his way back to himself, and Vestral waited a while longer—the conversation had been long, but only a few moments had passed for the guardians with him—before informing them of what had happened. “The man commanding the golden ship wishes for me to bow to him,” he said, using his most petulant tone and displeased frown. “We shall make a game for him. Take me home.”

~~*~~

Vestral’s first action was, once again, to evacuate the citizens of his city. This time, instead of recreating the shifting maze as he had for the invasion of the last two continents, he simply filled the city with versions of himself. Some human, some scaled and bestial, some fully draconic; some adult, some child; some had vestigial wings, some had horns, some had sharpened teeth and claws; some had traces of his psychic power, some did not. He could even project his mental voice through some of them.

Daenus arrived in style; the golden ship anchored itself in the sky above Vestral’s home city, near enough that the shimmering reflection of the sun in the sky made the day much brighter. A much smaller ship, carrying Daenus in glorious, gilded power armor that Vestral’s armies would have died a thousand deaths to have a pale reflection of, and four similarly golden-armored individuals nearly as tall as the Emperor.

Body doubles, bodyguards? It didn’t matter when all of them entered the city and saw the game Vestral had made. Vestral connected himself to all five minds, but did nothing save watch their actions. “Spread out, and keep a sharp eye,” Daenus ordered them, and was obeyed with the same immediate speed as Vestral was when he gave orders. Separately, each of the five waded through the crowd of false Vestrals; now and then, one would pause and communicate with the others to confirm if perhaps they had found the true Vestral. They never had; Daenus could always confirm that it was not the true Vestral through his own psychic might.

Slowly, carefully, harming none of the false Vestrals, they made their way through the city. They checked each and every room of each and every building; they wound their way through the palace Vestral had decorated, and eventually they came to the building where Vestral had originally projected his shield from. It was the only empty building, for Vestral had only placed one false version of himself within it.

Daenus and his four guards crossed its path very near to Vestral’s shielding room; at first, it did not react to them. Vestral had deliberately crippled its mind so that it could not react in any intelligent way, made it as draconic as he could while still leaving it human, and forced it to walk on all fours. He had even given it tiny, vestigial wings, but he could not project his voice through it.

They waited with it for a long time; Daenus managed to get it to pay attention to him, even managed to get it to respond to his thoughts as much as it could. “You think this is him?” one of the golden guards asked.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Daenus answered, and there was a deep darkness in his voice that Vestral hadn’t expected. “Considering what he went through before we got here…”

_Maybe I made a mistake… _Vestral started to worry, but did not share the thought with them. Surely they could figure out the trick. Surely.

“Suppose this is another fake Vestral,” another guard asked. Vestral nudged his thoughts in this direction, all but directly telling him that he was correct. To do so outright would be to ruin the game, but Vestral did encourage the idea to root in each of the others. Daenus considered the idea, and answered slowly. “He’s been pretty good at this so far…most of the ones we’ve met so far haven’t shared his DNA, even if they have shared his psychic imprint, so…” he carefully pulled out a needle and found a tender place to stick the false Vestral; once he had drawn a drop of blood, he quickly licked it off the needle.

The light went out of Daenus’s eyes. _Is this me? _Vestral asked him, panic beginning to stir in his breast. He did what he could to show the Emperor that the answer to the question was no—surely he could track his psychic signal to the door that Vestral waited behind—sharing complex thoughts that the beast-him he had created could not possibly be Vestral, and asking question after question to try get Daenus thinking along the right path. _Are you sure? Is this the right one? Did you find me?_

He could not penetrate Daenus’s mind; his questions were as ineffectual as those of the psykers who had once tried to work their way through his shield. But where Vestral’s shield had shifted and changed too frequently for them to gain a foothold, Daenus’s shield was simply too strong. Too tall. Too thick. Too well-designed. “It’s him,” Daenus said, with his previously gold and now grey eyes closed. “I’m a damned fool…” he said, scooping the false draconic Vestral into his arms; it did not fight him, and was too comfortable in his grip.

Vestral frantically turned his efforts onto one of the other guards. _It isn’t me! He’s wrong! Open the door and prove it! _he shouted, and he gained just enough traction with their mind that they didn’t quite follow the Emperor away. “Maybe we should check the other rooms, just in case?” they offered. _Yes, yes, yes! _Vestral was chanting. “It could be just a really good trick,” they said.

The Emperor paused, but did not turn. “There’s no point. The DNA is a perfect match for Vestral’s, and I’m pretty sure his thoughts are coming from this. Or at least somewhere nearby. Something must have happened to separate his body and his soul…” _That can happen? _Vestral wondered; his influence over the guard waned just a little. “Whatever it was, it would have to be something terrible. Given that he spent an extremely long time in Tzeentch’s realm, and given how they treated psykers here, it might not have taken a big of a trigger as it did for…” he trailed off, but didn’t conclude the thought. He merely shook his head and kept walking. “This has to be him. Let’s go.”

The guard hesitated a moment longer, even looked at the door Vestral waited behind, but followed the Emperor. It took Vestral just a moment too long to realize what was happening, and by then, they were out of range for easy influencing. His fingers—his hands, his arms—shook. He reached for the door’s handle, but couldn’t bring himself to open it. Instead, he sank to his knees and wept.

Within an hour, death in the form of a life-destroying virus rained from the sky. Vestral shielded no one, not even himself, and let no one into his room. “Bring him back,” he ordered, but no one could obey him, and the ship was too well-shielded—and the Emperor too set in his course—for Vestral to explain the lie. By then, the virus had made its way into his darkened shielding room, had eaten his furry creatures and turned them into piles of mush, and was beginning to affect Vestral.

He looked up at the door before him. Once before, a door had saved him and taken him out of hell. Vestral stood, one leg barely able to support him, and one arm hanging lifeless by his side. “Take me somewhere,” he told it, his voice a harsh croak. “Take me somewhere else. Anywhere…anywhere but here,” he demanded, and put a hand on its handle. Blinding, rippling, blue-pink light with the grey mists of change behind it greeted him. He stepped through.


End file.
